


The Night We Stole For You

by Ransomedbard



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Pulling Off a Big Heist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14154882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ransomedbard/pseuds/Ransomedbard
Summary: In the years after the war, Quatre’s empathic ability has grown far beyond his ability to control it. Now the raw emotions of those nearby - animal as well as human - will overwhelm and hijack his mind.To preserve his sanity, Quatre left Earth four years ago, retreating to a private space station where he lives in isolation with only small trees and plants for company. As his power continues to grow, he despairs of ever having a normal life again.When Heero has a theory about what may finally be the key to helping Quatre, the rest of the Gundam pilots come together with an audacious plan to steal one of the world’s oldest trees and send it into space.





	1. Chapter 1

Quatre woke in the middle of the night. Groggy, he was aware at first only of the vague shape of the objects in his bedroom, barely visible in the starlight spilling in from his window. Then feelings washed over him, feelings of excitement and suspense.

But they were not his feelings. 

The realization made his pulse leap with a hint of panic, even though the unwanted emotions were as yet only weakly intrusive and dissonant. Still, he was so aggravated that for a moment his self-control wavered and it was a struggle to avoid crying out in frustration - not that anyone would have heard him.

He slipped out of bed, careful of his balance as a familiar sense of vertigo set in, and padded over to the console on his desk. He punched up the direct line to the patrol ship, and then closed his eyes briefly against the brightness of the screen as the vidcall connected; the headache was starting, too. When he opened them again he saw Auda, who was on duty for the overnight shift; he was watching one of his beloved cooking contest shows.

“Master Quatre?” Auda said, then saw the strain on Quatre’s face and was instantly apologetic, reaching out of Quatre’s view for the controls of the ship. “I am so sorry. We’re moving out further, just hold on…”

After another minute, Quatre let out a sigh and forced a smile. “It’s better now. Thank you, Auda.” Remembering the feelings that woke him, he added, “I hope your favorite chef wins.”

Auda’s smile was bittersweet. “I’ll let you know.”

* * *

Wu Fei was on his fourth straight hour of grading essays when the vidcall came in. He was so relieved by the prospect of a break that he didn’t even bother to check who it was before he hit the button to accept. When the encrypted call connected, he recognized the nature poster-lined office walls of Outrunner Wilderness Tours, and its owner, Heero Yuy.

“Assistant Professor Chang,” he began, looking around to take in the state of Wu Fei’s own cluttered closet of an office. “Good, I was hoping to catch you alone.”

“Yuy? Need me to bail you out of jail again?”

“That was exactly _one_ time, Chang. One time.”

Wu Fei grinned. “So you don’t need a favor?”

“Actually, I do. Is your location secure?” 

Wu Fei rolled his eyes as he slid his chair back and locked his office door, then scooted back to the desk. “Secure as it’s going to get. Now what’s this about?”

“I want to ask you about that forest trip you took with Quatre.”

“Ah,” he said with sudden understanding. Heero was back to working on Winner’s problem again. Admirable, if sadly foolhardy at this point.

Quatre’s mysterious sensitivity to the feelings of others had been revealed to each of the Gundam pilots during the war; it remained a closely guarded secret known only to Quatre’s closest friends and family. The power unnerved Wu Fei at first, but as he grew to trust Quatre he became appreciative of the insight it lent him. Unfortunately in the years after the war, it had continued to grow stronger, until rather than just occasionally sensing the feelings of those he had a strong connection to, Quatre was constantly overwhelmed with the emotions of anyone nearby; they conflicted with and drowned out his emotions, and even his own thoughts. The experience was apparently excruciating, made all the worse by the fact that he was affected most by the people he cared about. 

Quatre had to begin living in isolation, no longer able to tolerate sharing a car or a house with anyone, unable to visit a restaurant or store or even walk down a city street. As it grew stronger he found he could not even stand to be near animals, as he began to feel their raw, unfiltered emotions hijack his mind like an intolerable cacophony. Only plants, somehow, offered him a respite; they were like mental white noise that dampered and partially negated his power. He’d tried living on his own in various remote woods and jungles for a while, but each time there was simply too much animal life, even in the dead of winter. To preserve his sanity he had finally had to leave the planet four years ago and retreat to a private satellite, a tiny station all to himself where he had only small trees and plants for company. Some of his employees and a rotating cast of Maganacs patrolled in ships around the station to provide security for him, for even though he had given up any role in running the Winner Corporation, his wealth and family made him a target for extortion and kidnapping.

Alarmingly, Wu Fei had heard from Rashid not long ago that they were having to increase their patrol distance from the station every few months, as Quatre’s power continued to grow.

“Wu Fei?” 

Heero brought him back to the present and he realized he’d missed whatever Yuy had asked him. “I’m sorry - what did you say?”

“Near the end of your trip, you visited a grove of redwoods. Can you tell me again what you remember?”

“Yes, they were magnificent. True giants.” Wu Fei rubbed his temple as he tried to recall exactly what had happened. “Quatre seemed...better, with them, more than any other time on our trip. It was noticeable. When he was close to one of them, something weighing him down just seemed to...fall away.” Even back then he’d had to keep a few meter’s distance away from his friend so he couldn’t quite make out Quatre’s expression, but he’d seen some of that constant, gnawing tension leave his body. Wu Fei sighed.

“But it wasn’t enough, Yuy. I don’t know if it was all the animal life around him, or the trees themselves, but it wasn’t enough.” He let his hands fall into his lap. “And you know we tried sending him young redwoods. He has some on the station now. But we’ll never get anything approaching those behemoths in size.”

There was a long pause while Heero studied him with a piercing look. “What if,” Heero finally said, picking his words carefully, “what if it wasn’t the size of the trees, but their age?”

Wu Fei blinked. “But-“ he reflexively began, and the stopped. It wasn’t anything they had considered before. Trees could live a very long time, couldn’t they? He racked his brain, methodically recalling every step of the trip he’d taken with Quatre years ago before he spoke again. 

“There are trees that live in colonies - aspens, I think - that are very old. We drove through some on our way, and I don’t recall him reacting to them.”

Heero’s response was confident. “Those are, as you said, old colonies. The trees themselves individually only live a few hundred years. The redwoods you visited can live much longer. By my best guess, that area contained redwoods of up to 800 years.”

Wu Fei tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought that over. “So, if it is the age of the tree that helps him… what can we do? They are just too massive to take into space to begin with, and an older tree would just be bigger, right?”

“Redwoods won’t do,” Heero admitted. “I thought of trying to just obtain the stump and roots of an old one and graft on some branches, but I doubt it would survive the trauma, and it might not work for Quatre anyway if it’s missing so much of the original tree. But Wu Fei,” he said earnestly, speaking a bit faster, “redwoods are not the oldest trees, not by a long shot. There’s a type of pine - the bristlecone pine - that can live well over 4,000 years. And they don’t get that large, either; only 10 to 15 meters high. The root system has to be added to that, but it’s fairly shallow.”

Wu Fei couldn’t help but get caught up in the hope he could hear in his friend’s voice. As supernatural as Quatre’s power appeared, there was a strange logic to it; they had been trying to crack the code for years. Perhaps this was the key. 

“Heero, if you’re right…” _It could change Quatre’s life._ Then reality sank in and he slumped back into his chair. “But there’s no way you could ever get permission to remove a tree of that age; they must be highly protected. You should know that better than anyone.”

Heero smirked.

Wu Fei frowned. “Yuy...you’re not thinking of—“

“Relax, Chang. I know you’re working on getting tenure at the University. I wouldn’t think of involving you. I’ll erase any record of this call. You’ll have plausible deniability.”

Wu Fei leaned closer to the vidscreen. “Heero, wait, you can’t be serious-“

“Gotta go, thanks for the chat.”

“Heero, this could ruin your career! You can’t just—” 

Heero hung up the vidcall and turned to look over at Duo and Trowa, who were seated at a table in the corner and had remained out of sight. “Well? Satisfied?”

Duo grinned and spun around in his office chair. “Completely!”

Trowa gave Duo’s chair a small kick to spin him faster. “I think you just wanted to torture him. Now he knows what we’re planning and he can’t do a damn thing about it.”

“Come on,” replied Duo. “You know we couldn’t leave him in the dark on this, it wouldn’t be fair. He’s part of the team. He’s with us in spirit!”

Heero gave them both a serious look. “Wu Fei’s right that what we’re contemplating is highly illegal. Conservation law is no joke. We could all be looking at jail time.”

“And he’s right you have the most to lose,” rejoined Duo. “Even without pressing charges, they’ll yank your business’s license to do wilderness tours in protected areas in a heartbeat. But you don’t care, and neither do we. We gotta try.”

Heero looked at Trowa, who was keeping Duo spinning with well timed kicks of his boot. “It’s for Quatre,” he said simply. 

“All right then,” Heero said, striding across the room and sitting down at the table with them. “Gentlemen, let’s steal a tree.”


	2. Chapter 2

Heero laid out the meticulously detailed maps he had created, with marks indicating the six most likely candidates.  They were all bristlecone pines, with estimated ages between 3,800 and 4,600 years. He explained that he had avoided the most famous and oldest of the species, as well as those found in popular areas of the mountain range, or too close to other trees to cleanly extract. Next to the map was a stack of labeled photographs, documenting each of the candidates and their surroundings. 

Duo whistled. "Damn, Yuy, you’ve been working on this for a while, haven’t you?"

Trowa flipped through the photos with a critical eye.  "They may be small compared to redwoods, but it’s still going to be a challenge to fit one into a cargo shuttle. These two are smaller and would save us a few meters, but they’re both on cliff edges."

"Extraction is going to be difficult no matter which we pick," Heero replied. "The root structures are complex and deeply intertwined with faults in the stone."

"Shouldn’t we go for the oldest, then?" Duo said, pointing it out. "We only get one shot. This is all pointless if we shoot a tree into space and it doesn’t work."

"The ages are just estimates based on terahertz scans. I didn’t dare to take a core sample. They could be hundreds of years off."

As the evening wore on, they settled on a target tree; it was only the third oldest, but the roots looked easiest to remove cleanly, and the canopy wouldn’t require any major trimming to fit. Next they switched to extraction and removal. Breaking the tree out of the ground was straightforward, but moving it afterward was leaving them stumped. The tree was massively heavy; Heero had estimated it at 18,000 kilograms, including the portion of rock the roots would be clinging to.

"Is there any way we can shave off some of the weight before taking it off-site?" asked Trowa.

"We can remove most of the stone from around the roots before we launch it, but it will take time to do it without hurting the tree," Heero explained. "We’re going to have to take it in one night, as quietly and with as little light as possible."

"Light ain’t a problem, we can go infrared," opined Duo. "But unless you’ve got a blimp, I don’t see how we move it quietly - or without leaving a big trail."

"What I wouldn’t give to have my mobile suit again," Trowa remarked. "It’d make getting it out a hell of a lot easier."

"This was the part I could never figure out," Heero admitted, looked chagrined. "if all else fails...I was thinking we could get our hands on an old Leo."

"Oh, that’s _real unobtrusive_ , Heero! And also a whole new level of illegal," Trowa shot back. "I don’t want to go to ‘breaking rocks’ prison."

Duo interrupted them both, his eyes bright. "Helicopter."

Trowa raised an eyebrow. "That...would be noisy, but otherwise perfect."

Heero shook his head. "Duo, I’ve already looked into that.  You just can’t find a helicopter that can lift this much weight."

Duo’s face lit up with a dangerous smile. "Do you want to bet?"

 

* * *

 

"I had forgotten how much Duo loves helicopters," Heero said to Trowa as they sat together at a small table in a cavernous hangar. They were taking a short break during another grueling day of work welding together the space station module that would house the tree.

As the remark was something he’d heard repeatedly over the past two months, Trowa didn’t bother to respond. He just continued to scrub his face and neck with a damp washcloth, trying to make an impact on the streaks of welding smoke that seemed to be embedded into his skin.

"In my defense, I did of course research helicopters, but I didn’t think to look at models over a century old," Heero continued, mostly to himself. "Nor did I anticipate that he’d be crazy enough to buy a junker like  _ that _ and attempt to fix it up."  He gestured over to the other side of the huge building, where the three story tall aircraft in question was parked. The helicopter's paint, which might once have been white, was almost completely gone, eroded down to the bare metal by exposure to wind and weather; in the shaded recesses of the underside, a few clumps of dead moss still clung to seams and vents. Half of the windshields were cracked or missing, and the tires were nothing but wisps of brittle rubber clinging to the rims. It stood forlornly, with various maintenance hatches hanging open, exposing a mess of parts and wires.

"Still a sore loser, Heero?" ragged Duo, who had appeared suddenly, clad in coveralls that looked like he’d gotten in a fight with a oil pan and lost. He was holding a sheaf of papers and sporting a bigger than usual smile on his face. "Don’t worry, I’m here to bug Trowa this time. Look what just got delivered."

Trowa took the waybills from Duo and  shuffled through them. "Hygrometers, soil and air thermometers, focused spectrum light bulbs, a climate control system, and a bunch of probes and sensors - who ordered all this? I thought we hadn’t even figured out what we needed yet, let alone where to source it."

"Probably the same guy that just sent us a custom profile for that climate control system with all the right parameters for replicating an arid mountain environment," Duo gloated. 

"Damnit Chang!" Heero exclaimed. "He wasn’t supposed to get involved."

Duo took the papers back from Trowa. "Don’t worry, he used a burner email account to send the file.  And I’m sure he hid the purchase trail too; you know he’s nothing if not meticulous. The important thing is—" he said, tapping his rolled up paperwork on Trowa’s nose with every word, "I - knew - he - would - come - through! We’re a team!"

When Trowa feigned a grab for his welding torch, Duo danced back out of range and laughed his way back towards the helicopter side of the hangar.  Heero sat stony faced watching him go.

After a moment, Trowa said "Heero, let the man make decisions for himself. Quatre is his friend, too."

When that didn’t prompt a reaction, he added gently, "It’s not just Wu Fei, is it? What’s wrong?"

Heero turned and looked at him, shoulders slumped. "Trowa… when I was working on this on my own, I drove myself relentlessly forward, without letting my doubts get in the way. But now that it’s really happening, I’m afraid. You’re all putting so much on the line here."

It was true. Since the three of them had decided to pursue this plan together, they had swept away every obstacle in their path. The first thing they had needed was time, so Heero and Trowa had canceled all their client work and spun their businesses down; Duo quit his job. Next they needed money to rent the hangar that would be their base of operations, so they sold off their luxuries: Heero’s boat, Trowa’s small two-seater plane. When it came time to buy the materials and tools to build the space module, they pooled their remaining cash and sold some stock; when that wasn’t enough, Heero sold his car. 

Then Duo, who had been oddly quiet, suddenly announced he’d be gone for a few days and took off. They knew he had been relentlessly searching for a solution to the problem of moving the tree; he had found it in a long forgotten helicopter in a junkyard halfway across the world. When he returned with it in triumph, it didn’t take long for them to figure out he’d cashed out his retirement fund to pay to transport it back and buy the parts needed to fix it. That had precipitated their first and to date only fight. Trowa had been furious that they hadn’t been consulted; he and Heero still had business assets they could have sold off first. Duo threw back that it was his own damn money, and besides Heero and Trowa had already contributed far more than he had. Trowa and Duo weren’t on speaking terms for a while afterwards, but they all agreed to no more secrets.

As the bills kept coming, Trowa let his apartment lease expire and moved into the hangar; Heero rented out his house and joined him. Duo would have followed suit if they hadn’t convinced him to keep his loft so they’d have a place to shower and have a hot meal.  And now Wu Fei had sent them a very expensive set of hardware; no doubt it had been a major sacrifice on his meager salary and student loans.

"We have gone rather all in on this, haven’t we," Trowa mused with dry understatement. "There’s no getting around that it takes an awful lot of money to build a new module for a station and launch it into space."

"We’ve never… we won’t ask Quatre," Heero added softly.

Trowa smiled sadly. "No. I’m aware of the irony, but I think we’re all in agreement on that. Because we’re afraid he would tell us to stop."

Heero put his face in his hands.  "God."

Trowa stood up and put a hand on Heero’s shoulder. "Don’t overthink it, Heero. Duo may be a bit grating about rubbing it in, but he’s right that we’re all united on this. Succeed or fail, the thing we would most regret is not giving it our all."

* * *

 

Three weeks later, everything fell into place.  Duo resurrected his ancient helicopter, and even gave it a fresh coat of matte black paint. Wu Fei’s climate control system was set up and running. And the space station module was complete except for the last wall, which they would have to weld into place after the tree was inside. 

They scheduled the launch to occur in one week and reserved a cargo spaceship at the spaceport. With everything lined up and the clock ticking, they loaded up with explosives, gear and supplies and took off for the mountains. It felt very reminiscent of their war years.

For three days they camped out in the wilderness, sleeping in caves by day and working under cover of darkness to drill into the rock around the tree.  First came the six larger, arcing tunnels that passed under the tree and came up on the other side, through which they would thread the load-bearing straps to lift the tree.  Then they drilled hundreds of smaller holes for the long, thin directional charges that would each focus their explosive force in a single line. When activated, they would crack the rock like a chisel and break off the chunk they were taking with them. Every night before dawn when they left the site, they would carefully disguise their work with sheets of stone-colored tarp covered in loose rocks and dirt. 

At the end of the third night Duo left them with a cheerful wave.  He was to walk 20 kilometers to the nearest road and take the truck they’d left behind back to the hanger. Then he’d sleep and prep the helicopter for the main event the following night.

Heero and Trowa trudged back to the caves, then sat a bit in the pre-dawn, eating a cold meal of water and energy bars.

"You know," Heero said hesitantly, "when I hacked in to Quatre’s network to find the plans for his private space station, I found another plan he was working on—"

"Heero, he does station design as a hobby," said Trowa, lying on his side and watching a morning star crest the horizon. "He minored in aerospace engineering, and he’s always had an artistic side. He’s even sold a few concepts. You know this."

Heero interjected. "Let me finish. The one that caught my eye - because he’d taken some pains to hide it - wasn't just blueprints; it was a full project, from building to deployment. It’s for a new station, designed for a single occupant, to be placed far out from the L4 cluster, in an area of dead space - no objects, no traffic, out of comms range.  You can draw your own conclusions, but I think it’s pretty clear."

Trowa sat up, upset. "Why? Why would he need to go out that far? His power hasn’t grown that strong, has it?"

Heero shook his head. "No, and unless something has changed I don’t think he would ever require that much space. I think he’s giving up on getting better and being able to rejoin society. Fully embracing his isolation. That new station has the capacity to recycle or generate enough power, water, air and food - if you don’t mind going strictly vegetarian - to keep him out there perpetually."

Trowa grimaced. "So that’s what’s driving you so hard, huh?"

Heero rose and turned towards the caves.  "Yeah. I'm afraid we’re running out of time."

Trowa’s tone was quiet, but vehement. "I can’t believe Quatre would be giving up like that.  He loves his friends, his family - hell, he loved talking to anyone he met!" 

He took a breath, and continued, his voice more subdued. "I know that what he’s gone through has changed him. How could it not? But abandoning us, shutting himself off in some distant corner of space..."

Heero looked back over his shoulder as he stepped into the cave. "He’s tired, Trowa.  He’s spent eight years fighting this and lost every time. It’s only natural he would want to withdraw from reminders of a life he can’t have anymore." Then he passed inside and left Trowa to watch the dawn alone.

 

* * *

 

The night of the heist was cold and clear; the moonless sky affording them an extra bit of cover.  It was just past midnight and Trowa and Heero were carefully placing the explosive charges into the holes in the stone around the tree and running the detonation wires back behind a small hill. 

Their earpieces came alive with Duo’s voice, sounding uncharacteristically businesslike. "This is Nighthawk enroute, ETA two zero minutes, over." 

Trowa put his hand over his mic and whispered at Heero. "Did he just give himself a new code name?"

"No, he named the helicopter ‘Nighthawk’. Trust me, that was the best name on his list," Heero whispered back, then uncovered his own mic and said in a normal voice, "Roger that, Nighthawk. We’ll be ready."

When the charges were all set, they took shelter behind the hill and waited for Duo to arrive. They could already hear the faint sound of the chopper approaching.

Trowa shoved the last of the leftover explosives in his backpack and said, "I’m a little hurt I didn’t get to see this list of potential helicopter names."

Heero glanced up from patching the detonation wires into the control console and replied, "Well maybe if you didn’t shoot his ideas down all the time, he would feel more comfortable sharing them with you."

Trowa handed Heero his set of ear protection as the chopper sounds grew louder.  "Duo knows I’m not serious, it’s just the way we interact. Just like we all know you’re ridiculously proud of Wu Fei for getting his Ph.D. even though you rub his lack of tenure in his face every chance you get."

Duo chimed in. "Guys? I can hear you - open mic, one channel, remember?  Also I’m almost at target, gimme a light."

Trowa switched on the flat can infrared spotlights to illuminate the ground near the tree.

Heero flipped open the top of the detonation control console and turned it on. "I was just hoping that maybe this experience of working closely together again would help the two of you work through some of this-" he waved his free hand in the air.

Trowa bucked his safety harness on with more vigor than was strictly necessary and replied, "Maybe it would have if Duo and I had actually been working together, but because _someone_ lost a bet, he didn’t have to do a damned bit of all that welding—"

"Guys," Duo hollered, "Seriously? I’m right here!" And he was; the helicopter was hovering overhead, a dark cutout in the sky, obscuring the stars.

"Charges ready and hot, everybody clear?" Heero said, cutting off the conversation.  After two angry confirmations, he fired the detonator.

The explosives blew in an instant, releasing a cloud of stone dust and debris.  For a minute they couldn’t see through the haze, but as it settled, the satisfying sight of a ring in the granite around the tree appeared.

"Looks good!" confirmed Duo.  He drifted to hover directly over the tree and activated the winch to lower the tow cable.

Trowa and Heero ran over to catch it and start attaching the load bearing straps.  In just a few minutes it was all hooked up and Trowa was scrambling to pick up the last of their gear while Duo very slowly winched the cable back up, with Heero untangling any straps that got caught in the branches.  

"Load!" yelled Heero as the winch finally pulled the straps taunt.  Duo locked the winch down and replied, “Locked. You guys on?" 

"I’m secure!" called Trowa, having climbed up the roots of the tree and hooked himself onto the line they’d belted around the trunk. "Heero?"

Duo struggled to maintain a steady altitude, but with the load locked in, any lift caused the tree to start to rise and drag. Trowa spotted Heero below, fixing one of the straps on the tree’s base that had gotten out of position. "He’s on the ground! Hold it steady, Duo!"

Duo’s laugh was high pitched and nervous. "Heero? Buddy? This thing is _really_ heavy, why dontcha get out from under it with a quickness—"

Heero stood and jumped up on the tree’s roots just as the massive hanging chunk of stone slid over the ground where he had been with a grinding lurch. "Secure!" he called. "Take it up!"  

The helicopter’s whine deepened to a roar and they rose slowly into the air, tree gently spinning and swaying in the wind.

"Hang tight down there," Duo said as he started on their way back to the hanger, circling over the site one last time so they could all have a look at the shallow, five meter wide crater they had left in the stony hillside. "Ooh," he cackled, "they are gonna be sooooo confused when they find that!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plots have been hatched, sacrifices have been made, and a priceless natural wonder has been stolen. But what will happen when they finally deliver the tree to Quatre?
> 
> * * *
> 
> Duo’s heliocopter is based on the Russian [Halo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26), which is 8 meters tall and can lift over 20,000 kg. There are pictures of this behemoth lifting up entire planes, so I figured the tree would be no problem ;) 


End file.
